Earlier this summer I decided that I wanted to try making a short and re-playable game as a design exercise. Since my university degree was on games technology, most of my projects have been focused on the technical implementation and not the design. As a result, very little of my dev work is fun or interesting to play. I wanted to start doing more design orientated work for my personal projects so that I could remedy this. To make something small and re-playable, a mobile game seemed the most logical choice.
Although I had previous experience of developing mobile applications (such as working on Meh last year) I'd never actually made a typical mobile game. By typical, I just mean a small game, that can be played in short sessions, with puzzle or action based mechanics and simple touch screen controls. I've yet to come up with an idea for a puzzle game that I think is interesting or original and the action based games I’ve made tend to have lots of button inputs for the user. This is difficult to do on touch screens since having lots of buttons results in a cluttered UI taking up valuable screen space. With a keyboard or controller, I can easily add new functionality to the application without losing screen space or asking the user to perform tricky touch inputs. I needed a game idea that only required basic input from the user.
I have been interested for a long time in adapting classic stories into video games. In particular, the Greek myths I studied when I was still in high school. Partly because of my love for these stories but also as an exercise in using mechanics to convey narrative. The rich themes of these stories are often portrayed through physical actions that could easily be translated into mechanics.
I’d been struggling to come up with a game idea for a while, when one day I was listening to a song that referenced the story of Icarus in its lyrics. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, an inventor and creator of the Labyrinth of the Minotaur. King Minos of Crete imprisoned Daedalus and Icarus, in a cave overlooking the sea that could only be accessed through the Labyrinth. In order to escape, Daedalus built a pair of wings for him and his son which they could use to fly out of the cave. Daedalus warned Icarus that he shouldn’t fly too close to the sun or too close to the sea. This was to prevent the sun’s heat from melting the wax holding the wings together and to stop the wings from being clogged by the water. When they started flying, Icarus became so overcome with joy that he forgot his father’s warning and flew higher and higher, causing the wax in his wings to melt. He fell into the sea and to his death.
The story is, of course, a fable telling us to be aware of our limitations and to not be overly ambitious. I don’t completely agree with the message but I still love the story. I find the imagery it evokes of flying and falling, to be very compelling. I realised that the story would be a good fit for a game with mechanics similar to Flappy Bird. I soon discovered that my idea was fairly unoriginal. The Android app store is littered with Flappy Bird clones that have an Icarus skin to them. However, these games were completely identical to Flappy Bird mechanically. The player makes a character jump at appropriate times to avoid obstacles. Just replacing the bird with Icarus and the pipes with clouds. I envisioned something that was closer to the fable. Where the player was incentivised to fly higher but with greater risk.
The basic idea was that Icarus would take off out of the cave and then fly right. If the user held their finger on the screen, Icarus would ascend and when they released their finger, he would start to descend. Waves of varying height would move along below him and the sun would shine in the sky. If he touched a wave or stayed close to the sun for too long, then he would fall and die. As long as Icarus remained alive, the player’s score would increase. The closer Icarus flew to the sun; the faster the player’s score would go up. This is where the mechanics reflect the theme of the story. The player can either choose to fly in the middle of the screen and have their score increase slowly or they can risk death by flying higher to achieve greater reward.
With a rough design in mind, I then began developing a prototype. The early prototype soon taught me that there was a fatal flaw in my original design. I will describe what I mean, along with how I developed the prototype, in a future post. That post will also contain more pictures. I promise.
Although I had previous experience of developing mobile applications (such as working on Meh last year) I'd never actually made a typical mobile game. By typical, I just mean a small game, that can be played in short sessions, with puzzle or action based mechanics and simple touch screen controls. I've yet to come up with an idea for a puzzle game that I think is interesting or original and the action based games I’ve made tend to have lots of button inputs for the user. This is difficult to do on touch screens since having lots of buttons results in a cluttered UI taking up valuable screen space. With a keyboard or controller, I can easily add new functionality to the application without losing screen space or asking the user to perform tricky touch inputs. I needed a game idea that only required basic input from the user.
I have been interested for a long time in adapting classic stories into video games. In particular, the Greek myths I studied when I was still in high school. Partly because of my love for these stories but also as an exercise in using mechanics to convey narrative. The rich themes of these stories are often portrayed through physical actions that could easily be translated into mechanics.
I’d been struggling to come up with a game idea for a while, when one day I was listening to a song that referenced the story of Icarus in its lyrics. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, an inventor and creator of the Labyrinth of the Minotaur. King Minos of Crete imprisoned Daedalus and Icarus, in a cave overlooking the sea that could only be accessed through the Labyrinth. In order to escape, Daedalus built a pair of wings for him and his son which they could use to fly out of the cave. Daedalus warned Icarus that he shouldn’t fly too close to the sun or too close to the sea. This was to prevent the sun’s heat from melting the wax holding the wings together and to stop the wings from being clogged by the water. When they started flying, Icarus became so overcome with joy that he forgot his father’s warning and flew higher and higher, causing the wax in his wings to melt. He fell into the sea and to his death.
The story is, of course, a fable telling us to be aware of our limitations and to not be overly ambitious. I don’t completely agree with the message but I still love the story. I find the imagery it evokes of flying and falling, to be very compelling. I realised that the story would be a good fit for a game with mechanics similar to Flappy Bird. I soon discovered that my idea was fairly unoriginal. The Android app store is littered with Flappy Bird clones that have an Icarus skin to them. However, these games were completely identical to Flappy Bird mechanically. The player makes a character jump at appropriate times to avoid obstacles. Just replacing the bird with Icarus and the pipes with clouds. I envisioned something that was closer to the fable. Where the player was incentivised to fly higher but with greater risk.
The basic idea was that Icarus would take off out of the cave and then fly right. If the user held their finger on the screen, Icarus would ascend and when they released their finger, he would start to descend. Waves of varying height would move along below him and the sun would shine in the sky. If he touched a wave or stayed close to the sun for too long, then he would fall and die. As long as Icarus remained alive, the player’s score would increase. The closer Icarus flew to the sun; the faster the player’s score would go up. This is where the mechanics reflect the theme of the story. The player can either choose to fly in the middle of the screen and have their score increase slowly or they can risk death by flying higher to achieve greater reward.
With a rough design in mind, I then began developing a prototype. The early prototype soon taught me that there was a fatal flaw in my original design. I will describe what I mean, along with how I developed the prototype, in a future post. That post will also contain more pictures. I promise.